The Devil's Harp String: Hexham Chronicles: Book One

by Anthony Barber

  Satisfied for now she went downstairs, after checking the young girl's vitals one more time.

  Father John and Jeremy were in the kitchen. The priest looked a bit comical to her. Wearing a cassock, surplice and a purple stole, bent over a small broom and dustpan, clearing the kitchen floor of glass debris. Jeremy stood with his back to the priest, leaning over the sink, with his head in his hands.

  “Father John?” Mads said. The priest straightened up and pointed to a dustpan hung on the wall with a nail.

  “Can you have the physician at the rectory bring an IV set up and a few other medical supplies?” Mads asked and knelt down with the dustpan while the priest swept in the broken glass.

  “I should think so,” he said.

  It was after 10 P.M. before an assistant to the diocese’s physician showed up with the supplies that she asked for.

  Grace was sleeping soundly, and her vitals were strong. Mads set up the IV, changed the bandages, and administered antibiotics. Jeremy stayed in the room to watch over his daughter. Mads went downstairs.

  Father John was standing in front of the bay window in the living room.

  “We are out of time.” The priest seemed to say to no one at all. The New Orleans sky answered with booming thunder.

  At Mad’s request, Jeremy helped her clear everything from Grace’ room that wasn’t bolted down, except the bed she was restrained to, a small nightstand and the posters on the walls.

  She suggested to Father John, they move her to the downstairs guest room as a safety precaution.

  “No.” “Grace is still inside somewhere and we are going to need her help to fight this.” “We need to try to keep her as grounded as possible.” the priest said.

  Father John insisted Mads take a short nap while it was still possible. She agreed, and had him promise to wake her immediately should anything change.

  She stretched out on the couch, using her army blouse as a blanket and dozed fitfully, until Jeremy gently shook her awake three hours later. According to her Casio, it was 3:15 A.M.

  The relentless storm continued.

  Mads went into the small half bathroom under the staircase. After urinating, she bent over the sink and splashed cold water over her face. She was a hot mess of course. More like hot diarrhea, she thought. Giant bags, stood in relief, under her bloodshot eyes. Her hair was crap.

  Jeremy greeted her in the living room with a cup of black coffee in a paper cup.

  “Upstairs?” Mads asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

  Jeremy nodded. “Yes.” “He forced me to take a nap, but it was useless,” he said.

  “Grace is still sleeping, but the Father wanted me to wake you,” Jeremy said with some guilt. “Sorry.”

  Mads grinned. “We can sleep when we're dead.” She put on her jacket and went upstairs to check in on Father John and Grace.

  The smell was rancid and wet, permeating the entire 2nd floor of the house. Mads was used to this. It happened during every possession and she tried methods in the past to deal with it. Vapor rub under the nose, etc., and in one ridiculous case, a close pin on the nose, ala Little Rascals style. Nothing worked.

  Every light in the house started to flicker. Jeremy lit candles as a back-up and placed them all over the house.

  Grace’s bedroom was colder than a freezer storage unit and the heavy knit sweater and army blouse Mads wore were a thin comfort against it.

  Father John sat in the only chair in the room.

  “Father?” Mads said, wrinkling her nose against the overpowering stink.

  The priest looked up at her and smiled grimly. She could see the fog of cold breath coming out through his nostrils and mouth. “I’m fine young sister.”

  Mads dropped her medical bag next to the bed, opened it and came out with her stethoscope. She checked the young woman’s vitals. Her pulse remained strong. Fast, but strong. Mads changed the bandages on Grace’s eyes and ankles, then checked her restraints.

  Grace exhaled in long rumbling breaths.

  Mads looked over at the Father who sagged in his chair.

  “I think her pneumonia is making a come-back. “Can you go get Jeremy for me Father?” she asked and bent over Grace with her stethoscope. “We need to move her onto her side.”

  “I will get him.” Father Peterson stood up. Mads heard the audible crack from his back and ankles as he stretched. “God bless the holy mother, I’m getting old.”

  “Stay downstairs for a while Father and take a nap.” “I will send Jeremy if anything changes.” Father John nodded in agreement and left.

  A thin sheen of ice covered the panes of Grace’s bedroom windows. Mads could see the dim glow from the street light outside.

  She sat down in the small chair next to the bed facing Grace. Her chest continued to rise and fall in raspy breaths.

  Jeremy came into the candle-lit room outfitted in a heavy jacket with a fake fur hood.

  “We need to adjust your daughter’s straps and lay her on her side for a bit.” “The pneumonia is coming back,” she said, motioning to Grace’s father. “I will have Father John call a physician from the church to come look at her.”

  Mads loosened the straps from Grace’s left arm and leg. She had Jeremy ease his daughter on to her right side while she readjusted the straps.

  “We have to move her every couple of hours.” After Mads was satisfied with Grace’s position, she pulled up her pajama shirt and pressed the stethoscope to the girl’s back, checked her lungs then returned the blanket.

  Jeremy brought another small chair into the room and pulled up next to his daughter who was still sleeping. He clasped both of her hands into his, and her breathing seemed to ease.

  Madeline and Jeremy sat watch over Grace Poole for the next six hours.

  The Grace Poole/thing resting on her/its side, to prevent the lungs from filling with fluids, opened its ethereal eyes from behind bandaged bloody sockets.

  With Grace resting and her father standing watch, Mads went to the small front porch for a smoke. Although still windy and rainy out, it was warmer outside than inside.

  The streets were quiet.

  Feeling a bit guilty, Mads finished three cigarettes. The last of her tobacco. She would regret that later if she lived to have another smoke, she thought.

  She decided to do battle with the Poole’s destroyed kitchen and make breakfast. Nearly all the contents of the fridge exploded onto the kitchen floor the evening before. She salvaged enough to make oatmeal, toast with honey and coffee.

  Father John walked into the kitchen just as she finished making him a plate of food.

  “I thought I smelled something good,” he said.

  Mads grinned and waved the priest into a seat and put the plate in front of him.

  “Meh,” she said. “Not much, but better than nothing.”

  Father John finished breakfast, shaved, then went upstairs to relieve Jeremy for breakfast.

  The priest noticed the lack of odor as soon as he reached the top of the stairs. This was not unusual, he tried to assure himself. The phenomenon would come and go occasionally, but rarely so completely. The door to Grace’s door stood open.

  Mads was doing the dishes and starting to feel a bit better.

  “Mother of God!” the priest shouted loudly from upstairs.

  Mads dropped the plate she was holding. It shattered into small pieces in the sink. She ran upstairs.

  Jeremy Poole was crucified to the wall above his daughter’s bed. Upside down. The man was nailed in place with the wooden legs from the second chair which he brought into the room earlier. His feet were, hammered down and pointed skyward and his head, eyes open and mouth in a frozen scream of terror, rested just above the headboard. Jeremy’s arms were outstretched in a mocking hug.

  Grace, from Mads perspective at least, had not moved since the last time she checked her vitals an hour and a half ago. Nothing else in the room was disturbed. The extra chair remained in the place Jeremy put it earlier, minu
s four wooden legs.

  The fourth leg was speared through Jeremy Poole’s abdomen, where blood and ropes of intestine now dangled freely.

  Father John was attempting to push Grace’s bed away from the wall in order to rescue the man.

  Jeremy’s dead eyes stared blankly at them, blood from his pierced feet and guts flowed hotly down the length of his entire body.

  “I call upon the great Archangel Raphael, master of the air…” Father John whispered under his breath as he struggled to free the pinned man. Mads and the priest managed to push Grace’s bed away from the wall and both tried lifting Jeremy’s body weight to take the pressure off his punctured limbs.

  “Father!” Mads was breathing heavily.

  “Father!” she yelled again.

  John ignored her, continuing the last rites. “This being might be awakened to the world and beyond…”

  The room was oppressively hot now, and steam wafted from the floors, walls, and windows where frost had accumulated. Mads and Father John were both sweating profusely and covered in blood, which looked black in the dark room.

  Unable to free Jeremy from the wooden stakes, they combined their strength to pull each limb away from the stake attaching it to the wall. They yanked each wrist free with a sickening wet thaaawiiik! Mads stomach rolled.

  In order to free the man’s legs, Mads stood on a chair as Father Peterson supported Jeremy’s dead weight from below.

  Father John Peterson was not a spring chicken, but he was indeed a strong man. Mads looked down at the priest, his black face streaked in wet and drying blood. He strained and put his shoulders into it. Mads pulled the legs with one great final effort and they tore free with a sickening snap that sounded like a green tree branch being broken over the knee. Mads overbalanced and a dead Jeremy Poole toppled to the floor on top of her.

  Father John only briefly paused in his recitation of the last rites, to pull the dead man off of Mads. She grunted, and sat up, pushing a rope of Jeremy’s Poole’s intestines away from her face.

  Above Grace’s bed, one of Jeremy’s feet, skin dangling in shreds of exposed tendons and muscles, hung from a wooden stake in the wall like a gruesome rear-view mirror ornament.

  Grace lay on her side, asleep and unperturbed by the entire incident.

  There was zero debate as to whether or not to call the police. Mads was horrified, covered in gore, and exhausted, but still had her wits about her and knew any police involvement would end the exorcism and ultimately kill the teen.

  Father John and the former nun did not discuss what actually happened to Jeremy or who performed the vile anti-crucifixion on him. They knew.

  Grace Poole snored.

  Madeline and Father John cleaned the room the best they could, with the supplies Jeremy kept in the garage.

  After finishing the last rights on the dead man and removing his remaining leg from the wall, Madeline and the priest wrapped him in two large industrial sized trash bags and a set of black sheets.

  A large freezer in the Poole Family garage where they stored deer meat after hunting season, served as a temporary resting place for Jeremy. The pair of exorcists sweating and completely covered in blood and chunks of viscera carried the man downstairs and into the garage.

  They took turns showering. Mads threw all of their bloody clothing into the Poole’s washing machine. She found a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt for the heavy-set priest in Jeremy’s closet. Madeline changed into a pair of jeans and flannel shirt, she found in Grace’s room.

  After showering and changing, Mads checked on the young woman’s vitals. They seemed fine and there was a lot less wheezing coming from her chest. She rotated her onto her left side and reset the restraints. Before doing this, she sat the girl in an upright position and successfully poured half a protein shake into her.

  Father Massey, the diocesan physician, arrived after lunch.

  Mads watched over Grace while Father John sat with the doctor in the living room and laid out the entire story. There was an initial fear from Madeline that Massey may return to the dioceses and have Bishop Aguilar put a stop to the exorcism. Father John told her that it could not be helped Even if it were the case, he would not lie to Keller Massey.

  Father Massey insisted on privacy while examining the girl, despite Father John and Madeline’s pleas against it. They finally gave in to the doctor and waited in the hall, outside of the bedroom door on high alert.

  The doctor came out of the bedroom an hour later, and in one piece, Mads thought gratefully. Father Massey was clearly disturbed and barely acknowledged her. He regarded her as one would a stray dog. She didn’t like him much either. He was an uptight looking man with pinched features and arrogant demeanor. In clearer words, an asshole.

  They left the bedroom door open a crack, while they talked in the hallway.

  “Pneumonia has definitely returned.” Father Massey said. And reluctantly acknowledged that her nursing of the girl was spot on and seemed to be helping.

  “I highly recommend you get the girl to the hospital.” “The eye sockets are healing, but they will require surgery and stitches.” He looked through the doorway.

  Grace was sitting up in bed and seemed to be staring at them through her bandaged eyes. Disturbed by this, Father Massey turned his back to them and continued to give his diagnosis.

  “The ankle wounds are superficial and I gave her a tetanus shot.”

  “John, I implore you to end this.” “Sanctioned by the church or not, there’s been a murder.” Mads looked past Father Massey into the bedroom. The bandaged Grace, still restrained, cocked her head towards the trio.

  Father Massey left them a short while later, after consulting with Father Peterson in the living room while Mads watched the girl. Grace sitting upright held her attention at the door. Her breath was labored and harsh.

  The Grace/creature turned its head to face Mads.

  “Nice bike bitch,” it said with Grace Poole’s voice and grinned.

  Grace’s tongue lolled from her mouth and licked her cracking lips. Mads ignored the beast, stood up, retrieved her medical bag and produced a syringe.

  “Fucking Tituba bitch!” it roared and spat.

  Mads halted briefly, but filled the syringe and walked back to the bed as Father John entered the room.

  “Try to hold her John.” She flicked the syringe to get rid of lingering air bubbles.

  Father John started recitation of the Holy Roman Rite. Grace, still sitting up and grinning at them, strained against her straps.

  The rain, which had been falling relentlessly for nearly two days, stopped.

  Chapter Twelve

  Clarice Kline, born Clarice Mildred Kline in 1950 in Salem Massachusetts, was a witch. Not the trope-ridden witch portrayed in modern pop culture. No brooms or giant brew pots here my friends. A follower of the art. And as most of her kind, her true existence kept strictly under the radar.

  Clarice scoffed the fictional witches in books, TV, and film when she was younger. That changed as she matured, and in fact, she now found them quite entertaining.

  Others, of her kind, let their powers grow fallow with disuse. She knew of some witches, fully aware ones, who were ashamed of the power and heritage.

  Clarice Kline’s family line of witches could be traced several hundred years before Salem and the new world.

  There were covens of non-practicing witches all over the United States and the world. Not the known Wiccans, most of whom were not true witches, but actual craft practicing ones.

  All covens served specific purposes. Clarice Kline’s Coven and family served as demon hunters for centuries. As did all true witches, they did not reveal themselves to their progeny immediately. They watched and waited. Doctor Clarice Kline, Ph.D. in anthropology and archeology followed this tradition with her son.

  Clarice had not married, but her son, Walter was not an accident. He was the product of an arranged meeting within the coven. Doctor Kline did not have time
or patience for married life.

  Walter was an intelligent, sensitive, child she expected by puberty to come into his powers. And Walter did not disappoint. She recalled during her drive to meet with the Bishop Aguilar of St. Patrick’s.

  From an early age, Walter Kline began to show remarkable powers of precognition and telekinesis. Clarice certainly had the power of telekinesis, but nothing matching her son’s.

  At ten, Walter attended a Christmas Party with her at the posh residence of the head of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts.

  He was sent off with the children of several other holiday revelers to play.

  Clarice hated such gatherings, but it was all about keeping up appearances, and she was hot on the trail of a grant that would send her to central Africa for a new dig.

  The young girl who had been one of Walter’s play companions during the party was not badly injured. Walter saved her life, in fact. The details relayed by her by her ten-year-old son were a bit scattered and he was badly frightened.

  An enormous antique chandelier hung over the library and study where the children were set loose to play. It was well over a hundred years old, and the construction workers during the restoration of the mansion had either overlooked or done a shoddy job enhancing the supports.

  Walter noticed it upon entering the library. He wondered as any child or adult for that matter would, how such an enormous thing was hung into place.

  The chandelier started to sway immediately upon Walter’s entrance in the study. Walter noticed a great many objects move, seemingly without prompting, when he was around and didn’t give the chandelier a second thought. Besides, he was distracted by the thousands of books which filled the library’s shelves.

  He barely paid attention the privileged gaggle of rich kids racing around the expansive room in a frenzy of laughter.

  Above them all, the antique silver and crystal chandelier, weighing nearly a ton, swayed in ever-widening arcs.